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Ford's challenge was mild, however, compared with the bombshell dropped by Walter T. Rea of Patterson, Calif. A veteran pastor, Rea, in the course of Ph.D. research, stumbled across some long-buried writings by forgotten divines that matched huge swatches of Prophet White's books. Accusations of this general nature had arisen before but had been argued away by Adventist but had been argued away by Adventist officials. Rea was the first to document the vast scale of such borrowing (from 75 assorted books on history, doctrine and the Bible). Last April, Rea issued his full findings in a bitter book titled The White Lie. In it he concludes that the "plagiarism" undermines belief not only in the prophet's divine inspiration but also in her basic honesty. One Adventist, Delbert Hodder, a pediatrician and teacher at the University of Connecticut, has offered an altogether different explanation. When White was nine years old she was hit in the head by a rock and seriously injured. Hodder speculates that her visions were the result of "partial-complex seizure," a malady related to epilepsy.
Prodded by Rea, the church has been forced to give ground. Last month, Ministry, its magazine for clergy, conceded that White's use of "outside sources" was "much more extensive" than Adventists have realized. Admitted Ministry: "Sometimes she used material nearly word for word without giving credit." Most shocking of all, "She utilized the words of prior authors in describing words she heard spoken while in vision. In a few instances, she uses the writings of a 19th century source in quoting the words of Christ or of an angelic guide."
Despite these admissions, Church President Neal Wilson holds to the position that a prophet's thoughts can be divinely inspired even though they are not original. And loyal Adventists have taken to defending White's plagiarism as acceptable practice, arguing that parts of the Bible too were compiled from pre-existing sources. The church's last General Conference, in 1980, confirmed White as a latter-day prophet whose "writings are a continuing and authoritative source of truth." and authoritative source of truth."
A full report on the church's investigation of White's sources is due next year. Meanwhile, in the second edition of his book Rea plans to charge that White's last and most important works were actually fabricated by Adventist pioneers when she was senile. Whatever the outcome, Georgetown University Ethicist Roy Branson, editor of Spectrum, an independent journal for church liberals, says flatly that Adventists will no longer be able to appeal to White as "the final authority on a whole range of issues, including biblical and theological interpretation and life-style." If so, the Seventh-day Adventists would seem to have lost a resource more precious than the millions that went down the drain. —By Richard N. Ostling. Reported by Jim Castelli/Washington and Dick Thompson/San Francisco